The total cost of the war in Iraq

[quote]Why doesn't the public understand the staggering scale of our expenditures? In part because the administration talks only about the upfront costs, which are mostly handled by emergency appropriations. (Iraq funding is apparently still an emergency five years after the war began.) These costs, by our calculations, are now running at $12 billion a month -- $16 billion if you include Afghanistan. By the time you add in the costs hidden in the defense budget, the money we'll have to spend to help future veterans, and money to refurbish a military whose equipment and materiel have been greatly depleted, the total tab to the federal government will almost surely exceed $1.5 trillion. [/quote]

Just think what that $16 billion would do for our own country.

We sure wouldn't have to borrow money from China:

[quote]While Washington has been spending well beyond its means, others have been saving -- including the oil-rich countries that, like the oil companies, have been among the few winners of this war. No wonder, then, that China, Singapore and many Persian Gulf emirates have become lenders of last resort for troubled Wall Street banks, plowing in billions of dollars to shore up Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and other firms that burned their fingers on subprime mortgages. How long will it be before the huge sovereign wealth funds controlled by these countries begin buying up large shares of other U.S. assets? [/quote]

[quote]Why doesn't the public understand the staggering scale of our expenditures? In part because the administration talks only about the upfront costs, which are mostly handled by emergency appropriations. (Iraq funding is apparently still an emergency five years after the war began.) These costs, by our calculations, are now running at $12 billion a month -- $16 billion if you include Afghanistan. By the time you add in the costs hidden in the defense budget, the money we'll have to spend to help future veterans, and money to refurbish a military whose equipment and material have been greatly depleted, the total tab to the federal government will almost surely exceed $1.5 trillion. [/quote]

Just think what that $16 billion would do for our own country.

We sure wouldn't have to borrow money from China:

[quote]While Washington has been spending well beyond its means, others have been saving -- including the oil-rich countries that, like the oil companies, have been among the few winners of this war. No wonder, then, that China, Singapore and many Persian Gulf emirates have become lenders of last resort for troubled Wall Street banks, plowing in billions of dollars to shore up Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and other firms that burned their fingers on subprime mortgages. How long will it be before the huge sovereign wealth funds controlled by these countries begin buying up large shares of other U.S. assets? [/quote]

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I agree with you about the cost of these wars seen and hidden. I agree with what this money would mean to our country. We have many things on our home front, not connected to war, which are wrecking havoc at this time. I say we will have at least 2 to 3 years more of war (s), regardless of who is elected President. It takes time and money to move men and heavy equipment, munitions. Also, we need to evaluate the best time to start the withdrawals of our military. Let us not have another Viet Nam, please! From about 1959 to 1975 with the loss of 50,000 + soldiers, and untold equipment, etc. left behind as we ran out with our tails between our legs! You have seen the photo posted here. I am still waiting for an explanation for the war and the cost of so many lives. I read where a historian said the war helped stop communism from spreading further in the region. Lord, I hope so, for the sake of all the killed and maimed soldiers it brought home to us. I have read JFK was assassinated because he had strongly opposed us every becoming any more than an advisory force for the S. Viet Nam soldiers. Almost immediately after he died and Johnson was swore in, we were up to our necks in the mud hole of that place.

We have the right of imminent domain to freeze/seize their profits, property, and other goods bought, housed, or sold in this country. We have had it done to our businesses by other countries. We have to be ever diligent to keep every little piece of America from being bought by foreign lands.